Research Activities

Research Projects

Private standards/certifications and international trade: Practices of soft law and perspective from economics(2020_2_40_020)

Outline

Rapidly evolving global value chains require deep economic integration, which involves direct negotiations over domestic policy and harmonization or the mutual recognition of standards. Governments have attempted to fulfill this goal through preferential trade agreements. Recently, private standards and certification, which cover broad fields such as product safety, the environment, labor, and human rights, have become widely adopted, functioning as de-facto standards or "soft laws." This research project investigates the extent to which private standards and certification affect the social welfare of developed and developing countries in trade, comparing traditional standard policies, such as mutual recognition and harmonization.

Period

April 2020 - March 2023

Leader of the Research Project

Michida Etsuyo

Publications

Published by IDE